p2pnet - rss feed: Google Katrina disaster, disaster
p2pnet.net news:- “Make no mistake, this wasn’t any effort on our part to rewrite history. But it looks like this April Fool’s joke was on us.”
The comment came from John Hanke, the director of Google Maps/Local/Earth, and it was posted on the official Google blog on Sunday in response to complaints that Google had swapped out Katrina New Orleans images with smooth pre-disaster satellite pictures.
Hanke’s glib remark followed a letter Brad Miller, chairman of the US House Committee on Science, had sent toGoogle supremo Eric Schmidt.
In it, “I read media reports today that Google has ‘resurrected’ the City of New Orleans by replacing post-Hurricane Katrina imagery on its web site with images taken before the storm,” said Miller, going on:
If current Google Maps satellite imagery is to be believed, Hurricane Katrina never struck New Orleans, there was never any flooding and thousands of people do not need to be living in trailers because their homes ate still habitable.
Another storm, but this time of outrage, greeted the revelation and now Google says it’s replaced pre-Hurricane Katrina satellite images of the Gulf Coast region, “with more recent aerial photographs,” says CNET News, also stating Google said it planned to send a response to the congressman.
It, “confirmed it had swapped out the post-Katrina images in September, but it maintained that decision hinged on its interest in providing its users with high-quality images,” says the story, adding:
“The changes were part of a broader update that ’substantially improved the imagery detail for dozens of cities around the world, including New Orleans’, a representative said in a statement on Monday.”
“Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments,” said Hanke.
Also See:
swapped out - Why pre-Katrina Google pix?, April 2, 2007
blog - About the New Orleans imagery in Google Maps and Earth, April 1, 2007
CNET News - Google fends off Katrina criticism, April 3, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
